Curbside
by Angel Blackwood
Summary: If there is no future but a bleak one, what harm can come from loving now and well? A post-ep vignette for Milennium. Disclaimer: Not mine.


**CURBSIDE**

The Taurus pulls to a stop, heavy snowflakes dropping in straight, steady tracks around the vehicle in front of Mulder's apartment building. The engine surges, then dies into silence. The intermittent hiss and tick of superheated metal contracting in the cold is the only sound on an empty street.

Scully steps on the emergency brake, leaving the car in accessory mode so the heater still works. She's weary. Her scratches itch and her neck aches, the effects of the analgesic she took earlier long gone. A scented bath and sleeping-in sounds like heaven. But, first things first.

She turns to Mulder. His head leans back against the headrest, his mouth open while he naps. His breathing is audible, a little labored. But he's here. They've eluded Death again.

"Mulder," she says low. No response. She brushes the back of her gloved hand against his cheek with some fondness. "Mulder," she calls a little louder, tenderness creeping into her voice.

He starts and his eyes blink a few times in rapid succession. He takes a deep breath and exhales, dropping his face towards her. "Are we there yet?"

"Do you want me to walk you up?

"No," he says, his voice gravelly with sleep. He clears his throat and sits up, wincing. "I'm fine."

She glances at the sling cradling his right arm, barely concealed by the drape of his leather jacket. The gashes she'd seen were jagged and deep. The bandages cover dozens of sutures and his meds haven't kicked in yet. Red velvet ribbons of memory tug at her heart. Red as blood. "That's my line, isn't it?" she says, only half in jest.

He concurs with an enigmatic smile. What now, she wonders. Their case with Black is over and another X-file awaits, and another, and another. It is an all too-familiar cycle that never seems to change.

Not true, she corrects herself. Their once familiar terrain of shared work and separate lives has reconfigured. Trust, loyalty and devotion. They've withstood the white-hot fires of ambivalence and interference to reforge a bond that holds within its grasp those three qualities. Meanwhile, the death toll mounts, with Diana and Albert Hosteen the latest victims. Professionalism has made them adept at side-stepping romantic involvement. There is no place for it in the shadow of human colonization or worse.

Or is there? Their experiences at the hands of the smoker have altered their perceptions of the world and one another. If there is no future but a bleak one, what harm can come from loving now and well? Scully finds herself responding to Mulder's increased attentions, not as a co-worker, but as a woman. Still, even disregarding what might be, she is thwarted by simpler, human frailties. She is haunted by recollections of relationships gone wrong, old issues still claiming and chastising her.

At the hospital, an opportunity presented itself. They kissed at midnight on New Year's Eve. It was modest, but it felt... appropriate. It seemed a harbinger, of sorts. She watches Mulder's eyes, now, for a tell-tale sign that he understands this, too. They are slate in the shadows. They are the color of all things between darkness and light, inscrutable as smoke.

Has she misinterpreted?

She needs air. She opens the side window, feels the gelid sting of winter on her cheek, hears the soft whir of snowflakes colliding and melding into something greater than themselves. Street light filters through the windshield, growing opaque with whiteness. Pure as the driven snow, she muses. What if they had never partnered? What if their lives had intersected without the overlay of conspiracy and doom ever-threatening? So many questions. Can they ever be untainted?

"So-o, Scully, how 'bout those Yankees?"

"Mulder-," she groans, then chuffs at him. Facing him, she says, "This is typical."

"What is?"

"This. Us." Her eyes drop to his mouth and away, remembering his lips, warm against her own. She tamps down rising sensuality that surprises her with its rapidity and sway over her thinking. She says, "It's New Year's Day."

His brows arch, he cocks his head and his eyes say, So?

Approach and recede. It's a familiar dynamic, work and humor buffering the charged air between them. Beneath the rhetoric, she feels the pull of intimacy. She wants to know, 'What does it mean?' She needs to know 'Where do we go from here?'

"Also," she says, "It's New Year's Day, Mulder, and instead of celebrating, *we're* sitting in a car, wounded." She pauses, then asks with the simplicity of a child, "Why do we do this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Work," she says with some emphasis. "Endlessly. Why do we-or maybe more important-why don't we just live? You know, live? The thing that most people seem to be able to do without being attacked by zombies and mutants and insane criminals." His look of fatigue and non-comprehension downshifts her tempered tirade.

She closes the window, faces forward and switches the wipers back on.

She watches the slow, steady arc of blades on glass, the pristine mantle sliced away, revealing their surroundings. They've covered this ground before. She asks. He answers. His reply is always about stasis. To him, it is balance; to her, stagnation. She switches off the car completely, wipers freezing mid-sweep, and watches the snow resume its steadfast task of drop and cover, drop and cover.

Snow is ice formed into tiny crystals. All snow crystals are hexagonal, she thinks, but no two are the same. She watches the accumulation on the engine's hood, perfect crystals melting, transforming as they come into contact with the still-warm substance of the car. No resistance. Just physics. And nature.

"It would be nice to see one another without imminent danger lurking," she says. She doesn't look at him.

"We do that- sometimes," he says.

She swears he sounds apologetic and stifles the retort that springs to her lips. Her tone is soft, serious, but a with hint of mockery when she replies, "Christmas, birthdays, yes. We do, on occasion."

"And I spend more time with you than just about anyone else I know," he adds.

The late hour and her doubts are powerful inducements to avoid this discussion. Her need to know, however, is stronger. "Working," she clarifies. "But, we're also friends."

"Yeah." She feels his eyes on her profile.

"And friends share more than work. They see one another."

"Are you saying you want to see me, Scully?" She should have seen that coming. She allows him her smile, just a small one.

"I'm saying we have a life beyond the work." Her heart beats faster at the unvoiced implications.

"We do?" he tosses off, then recants. "No. No, you're right. I just-

" He falls silent and she waits. When the seconds drag on, she shifts her body to face him, pinning him with her eyes. "Never mind," he says. She isn't surprised. Approach and recede.

They sit together in silence for a minute. Then her hand moves to the key in the ignition.

"If I didn't say it before, Scully: Thanks for saving my ass. Again."

"That's what friends are for," she says without thinking, then grimaces at the cliche and its meaning. She doesn't want to see his face. She wants to go home. She wants a cup of tea and a soft comforter. And Mulder, she admits to herself before she can suppress the thought. She berates herself for being maudlin.

"We _are _friends," he says. She discerns a subtle tremor in his voice, discounts the way it tightens her throat. She turns, again, to face him.

"Do you doubt it?" she whispers. His head shakes in automatic response, but his expression is puzzled. "Then what?"

"Nothing."

She finds her voice and insists, in spite of herself, "I saw something in your face, Mulder. What is it?"

"No, it's nothing. Really." His eyes focus on the keys dangling from the column, his mind seeing its own pictures. Is she there? He's quiet for a space, then says, "Even Frank Black had a family."

Family? Mulder wants a family. Why is she surprised? Of course Mulder wants a family. She reminds herself to breathe, the blinks back salty frustration. You're barren, she accuses herself. Her voice is thin and strident when she replies, "At what cost? His wife's life? Nearly losing his daughter to some cause?"

Mulder looks at her. Snow has covered the windshield again, blocking the ambient light. She hopes the darkness conceals her confusion, her anger, her love. She knows it doesn't because she can read his expression, even now, in the dark. He's nervous, thoughtful, expectant.

"It's a gamble, Scully. A crap shoot." She feels the weight of his hand covering hers where it lays in her lap. She wishes she could feel his skin through the leather of her glove. "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose," he says. "Doesn't mean you don't play the game."

"I'd like better odds," she lets fall from her mouth in discouragement.

"Wouldn't we all?" he replies. His tone is tinged with regret and hope.

She sighs, her mouth open, and touches her tongue to her upper lip. They watch each other's eyes. The ensuing silence presses on her. It is too much emotion in too short a time.

The snow around the car is thick now, piled up around the mirrors, coating the windows, sealing them in its pure, cold embrace. Mulder needs rest. So does she. Assuming their evening is done, she moves to open the door, to go outside so she can help him navigate the frosty, unsteady path to his door.

Mulder's voice is soft when she hears him call, "Scully-" in the same, old way he always does when he's forgotten to tell her something he wants her to know. She closes her eyes and sighs with exaggeration. Reopening them, she turns back. He's sitting forward, angled towards her. She leans in, expecting a question or a glib remark.

"Yes, Mulder?"

She recognizes the desire in his eyes as her own a split-second before his hand lifts, threading gently through the hair at the back of her neck and pulling her towards him. Her lips part in a breathless moment before he presses his mouth to hers in their second kiss of the night. It's reminiscent of the first, but not quite. This time, he kisses her with seven years of crystallized frustration melting into a haze of warm, soft lips and the taste of Mulder on her tongue.

Yes.

She knows they are about to begin investigating a new X-file.

Them.

END - Curbside


End file.
